'I hear your servants, I think. I will leave you now.'
'I thank you, madonna. God be with you.'
But she did not go. She stood there between himself and the fireplace, slight and straight as on the first evening when he had seen her in her garden. She was dressed in a close-fitting gown of cloth of silver. He observed in particular now the tight sleeves which descended to the knuckles of her slim, tapering hands, and remembered that just such sleeves had she worn when first his eyes beheld her. Over this gown she wore a loose houppelande of sapphire velvet, reversed at throat and wide gaping sleeves with ermine. And there were sapphires in the silver caul that confined her abundant red-gold hair.
'Aye,' he said wistfully, dreamily, 'it was just so you looked, and just so will I remember you as long as I remember anything. It is good to have served you, lady mine. It has made me glorious in my own eyes.'
'You have made yourself glorious, Lord Prince, in the eyes of all.'
'What do they matter?'
Slowly she came back to him. She was very pale and a little frown was puckering her fine brows. Very wistful, and mysterious as deep pools, were those dark eyes of hers. She came back, drawn by the words he had used, and more than the words, by something odd in his gently musing tone.
'Do I matter nothing, Bellarion?'
He smiled with an infinite sadness. 'Must you ask that now? Does not the whole of my life in the world give you the answer, that never woman mattered more to a man? I have known no service but yours. And I have served you—per fas et nefas.'
She stood above him, and her lips quivered. What she said when at last she spoke had no apparent bearing upon the subject.